Passing the Graveyard by Andrew Young - Scottish Poetry Library

I see you did not try to save,
The bouquet of white flowers I gave;
So fast they wither on your grave.

Why does it hurt the heart to think
Of that most bitter abrupt brink
Where the low-shouldered coffins sink.

These living bodies that we wear
So change by every seventh year
That in a new dress we appear;

Limbs, spongy brain and slogging heart,
No part remains the selfsame part;
Like streams they stay and still depart.

You slipped slow bodies in the past;
Then why should we be so aghast
You flung off the whole flesh at last?

Let him who loves you think instead
That like a woman who has wed
You undressed first and went to bed

from Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1998)

‘Passing the Graveyard’ is copyrighted and reprinted here by kind permission of Carcanet Press Limited, Manchester, UK.